


Tuesday

by haztobegood



Series: Workday Wordplay [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M, in an office, relationship drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-02
Packaged: 2020-06-02 12:53:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19441852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haztobegood/pseuds/haztobegood
Summary: Tuesday: Zayn has artist's block.Nothing less than mischief is to be expected when Niall, Liam, Zayn, Louis, and Harry spend forty hours a week in corporate hell. Welcome to One Direction Financial - The Right Direction for Your Money.





	Tuesday

**Author's Note:**

> NOTE: This fic is part of a series. You should probably read the first part of this series before this fic.
> 
> Thanks to [kingsofsharedtats](https://kingsofsharedtats.tumblr.com/) for beta-ing this fic and thanks to [lululawrence](https://lululawrence.tumblr.com/) for organizing this challenge.
> 
> This is part of a Wordplay prompt challenge for the prompt "fluffy". To read the amazing fics that were written by the others on this prompt, [click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/fluffy), and to see all fics written as part of the challenge (including years 1 and 2), [click here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/wordplay_fic_challenge/works). You can also find the masterpost for this year’s challenge [here](https://wordplayfics.tumblr.com/post/185709101043/wordplay-2019-every-week-for-five-weeks-a-prompt).

Tuesday drags on until Zayn finds himself glancing at the clock every ten minutes, counting down the hours until he is free from this hell. The sooner he can get out of the office, and get away from Liam, the better. 

Zayn has been avoiding Liam since Sunday night. He hadn’t returned Liam's texts, left the break room when he came in, and pretended to sleep through the meeting yesterday to avoid watching Liam studiously take notes. He even dragged Niall away from the report he was writing to take an early lunch with him while Liam was in a meeting. Liam had definitely figured out by now that Zayn was purposefully avoiding him, but he deserved it. 

Zayn reasoned with himself that this was perfectly acceptable reaction to their argument on Sunday night. He and Liam had spent the entire weekend together, just another instance in a long string of on-again off-again friends-with-benefits weekends that has been dragging on for over six months. Zayn was ready to change that, so he casually suggested if Liam would stay over they could carpool to work, but Liam pushed back. He said it would look bad if people at work saw them arrive together. Zayn was hurt. He didn’t understand why Liam was so concerned about what others would think about them being together. The argument erupted and Liam left Zayn’s flat abruptly after shouting that he didn’t want their coworkers to think they were dating. 

Zayn still can’t wrap his head around Liam’s flawed logic. It’s not like Louis and Harry haven’t been together for two years and disgustingly open about their relationship all over the office. And besides, what’s the difference if him and Liam are dating or if they’re just fuck buddies? At this point, Zayn was convinced that Liam just didn’t want an actual relationship with him at all. So he distanced himself from Liam on Monday and has been avoiding him ever since. 

Zayn’s mood has been off since Sunday and everyone in the office has been suffering because of it. He interrupted Sarah during a meeting, ignored Kate when she was complaining about the sales guys, and made a rude joke about Louis and Harry that neither took well. He even snapped at his manager, Chandra, when she asked him to adjust a color scheme for one of his projects, yelling about how inconvenient it is to change colors after a project had been mostly finalized. Zayn knows he’s being insufferable, but nothing seems to improve his mood.

It doesn’t help any that he has a case of artist’s block when it comes to his newest assignment. He is meant to design the company’s new autumn campaign for college savings accounts, but he hasn’t gotten anywhere. He usually works with abstract backgrounds and minimalist fonts, simple designs meant to highlight the key points for business-minded people. This new campaign, however, is aimed at families with small children. The goal for the campaign is to have storybook inspired design, with cute characters, bright colors, and easy-to-understand visuals. It’s so far out of his comfort zone that he is at a standstill. 

He sets down his drawing tablet and stares out the window. He is lucky that his cube is by one of the few windows and he has a decent view. From their second story office space he can see part of a tree and the building across the street. As he gazes out the window blankly, he sees movement out of the corner of his eye and focuses in.

There’s a large grey squirrel running up some branches. It comes to rest on a branch right in front of Zayn. Zayn freezes, watching the squirrel in amazement. The squirrel is adorable, with it’s twitching nose, little whiskers, and cute ears. He stares as it preens its fluffy grey tail. It combs its tiny claws through the thick grey fur, grooming the tail and making it bigger. Then the squirrel disappears for a few minutes. Zayn continues idly watching out the window, hoping that his new friends will come back soon. He’s not disappointed, as just three minutes later the squirrel bounds back up the tree and takes a seat on the same branch as before this time it has brought an acorn. The acorn looks enormous between its tiny paws as the squirrel starts to nibble away at the seed. 

Then inspiration hits Zayn! Squirrels storing acorns is autumn-like and could be a cute analogy for the kids’ college savings account campaign. He begins sketching it out on his tablet, getting into the design of the character and developing a few scenes for the campaign. The squirrel surrounded by golden fallen leaves, the squirrel guarding a large pile of acorns, a squirrel with a speech bubble. Ideas are flowing through his mind faster than he can sketch out each rough thumbnail. He gets into the zone and tunes everything out as he refines some of the best sketches. 

“Hey,” Liam says quietly. 

Zayn jumps out of his revelry. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.” 

Zayn sets down his stylus and looks at Liam expectantly.

“Sorry didn’t mean to interrupt you.” Zayn can tell that Liam is nervous, he always over-apologizes when he’s anxious. “I was wondering if we could talk during your break. I just feel bad about where I left things on Sunday.”

“Sure. I can take a break now.” Zayn locks his tablet and leads Liam into the break room. He's relieved but anxious that Liam had decided to break the silence. He didn’t know how much longer he could have avoided him.

Luckily, the break room is empty. Zayn takes a seat at the table. Liam busies himself by making two cups of tea by the counter, keeping his back to Zayn as he begins to talk.

“I’m sorry I left. I shouldn’t have stormed out in the middle of the argument. And I guess I probably didn’t make much sense during it either.” Liam sets the steaming two mugs on the table and takes a seat next to Zayn.

“I was just afraid that it would be weird if everyone knew we were dating. And I’ve just always heard that companies can fire people if they date coworkers. But I had lunch with Louis and Harry today and they basically told me I was crazy. They’ve been together for over two years and they haven’t been fired. So…Yeah.”

Zayn stays silent and takes a sip of his tea.

Liam continues, “And I’d like if we could try again. Like, go on actual dates and stuff.”

“Alright,” Zayn agrees.

“Okay. Um. Yeah. Tonight? We could go out to that new Thai place you want to try,” Liam rambles.

“That sounds good, babe.” Zayn smiles softly at him. “I’m glad you wanted to talk, and I can’t wait for tonight. But right now I have to get back to drawing some fluffy squirrels.” He grabs his mug, pecks Liam chastely on the cheek and leaves the break room. He has to finish up his concept sketches quickly. 

The sooner he can get out of the office, the better. After all, he’s got a hot date tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! [Here](https://haztobegood.tumblr.com/post/185841867152/workday-wordplay-series-by-haztobegood-nothing) is a rebloggable tumblr post for the series.


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